Jon Hillier and Pete Smith from the University of Aberdeen describe the Cool Farm Tool: a greenhouse gas calculator that is free for growers to help them measure the carbon footprint of crops and livestock and to drive sustainability in supply chains.
n order to maintain a secure and stable food supply for current and future generations it is essential that we employ agricultural practices that are both efficient and environmentally beneficial. There has been a growing recognition of this fact in recent years as can be seen from a range a scientific journal articles and media stories highlighting the need for more food to feed a growing and changing global population and showing the large environmental impact of food production.
But it is perhaps not commonly known that these issues have also been recognised by businesses for some time, since many of the world’s major companies have a dependence on agriculture for the supply of their raw materials. If the supply of raw materials to a business is not sustainable then that business is not sustainable. Evidence of this can be seen in business environmental impact assessments where it is common to make ‘cradle-tograve life cycle analyses’. In other words – in order to generate a complete understanding of the environmental impact of their products – businesses consider the full life cycle all the way from the production of the raw materials to the disposal and processing of the waste.
"While life cycle analyses (LCA) tell companies that the majority of emissions come from the farm, the LCA tools do not break down agricultural emissions to allow exploration of options for reducing them."
When considering the greenhouse gas emissions (carbon footprint) of products, many food and drink companies find that the agricultural production phase contributes substantially to the overall carbon footprint. Indeed agriculture contributes significantly to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions - with estimates from 11% of global emissions – rising to 24% if land clearance for agriculture is included. But unlike product processing or distribution, where companies have standard processes and greater control, it is not so easy to find general solutions to reducing GHG emissions from ‘upstream’ processes in farming. This is due in large part to the inherent variability in farming systems. No farm is the same due to differences in soil and climate and the environmental impacts of farming practice depend on these variables as well as many others. Consequently it is essential to consider the specialist local knowledge of farmers when looking for ways to identify improvements in practice.
Since much of the world’s produce ends up in global supply chains, it is clearly in the interests of the food and drink and retail sectors to play their part in driving mitigation of GHG emissions. While life cycle analyses (LCA) tell companies that the majority of emissions come from the farm, the LCA tools do not break down agricultural emissions to allow exploration of options for reducing them.
Tackling agricultural emissions
There is a good body of knowledge in environmental science for understanding the effects of agricultural practice and environment on GHG emissions and developing mitigation options. For example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has synthesised much of the knowledge in this area to develop methods to account for and reduce GHG emissions from agriculture.
GHG abatement measures are available and many provide multiple benefits beyond climate change mitigation and adaptation. Dedicated practices, such as cover cropping, reduced tillage and agro-forestry, are known to be effective in many circumstances since they help retain carbon in the agricultural system and slow its evolution to carbon dioxide. In addition measures which reduce fuel and energy use or employ efficient use of fertiliser will also reduce costs and cut GHG emissions. However, it is in practice difficult to understand the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of such measures for a given product and farm. One of the major challenges for companies wishing to reduce GHG emissions in their supply chains is that they cannot identify practical mitigation options without the engagement of the farmers.
The ‘Cool Farm Tool’ was designed to fill this gap. It was the brainchild of Christof Walter - then Research Manager for Sustainable Agriculture at Unilever - who in 2008 approached the Environmental Modelling group at the University of Aberdeen to build an easyto- use tool to allow farmers to (a) assess emissions from their operations in a way that was sensitive to their farm setting and (b) to identify practical options to reduce them. With the support of the Sustainable Food Lab (a global network of organisations working together to facilitate market-based change for a healthy and sustainable food system), the first version of the tool was built, released and made publically available in 2010. Companies recognised the tool’s potential value for their own use.
Why was the tool made available to all? Because companies cannot realise sustainable agriculture independently. Farmers supply multiple buyers and if each buyer has its own proprietary method of assessment then the system becomes unworkable. So companies often work together in well-defined ‘pre-competitive’ spaces to address common problems: the Cool Farm Tool is one such example.![]()
The tool, once developed, was used more widely in a global pilot project and in time this led to the formation of the Cool Farm Alliance with the mission GHG CALCULATOR to develop and employ the tool to enable millions of growers globally to make more informed on-farm decisions that reduce their environmental impact. The membership of the Cool Farm Alliance has now grown to more than 20 organisations and the tool is being widely employed in several companies as part of their sustainable sourcing programmes. Carmel McQuaid, now Head of Sustainable Business at Marks & Spencer, believes that one of the key principles is to empower farmers - the tool needs to be farmer focused, free to use and it needs to build on farmers’ existing knowledge. It is perhaps this property above all which has led to the widespread adoption and application of the tool.
• Using the Cool Farm Tool in the UK, PepsiCo set an ambitious 50-in-5 GHG reduction target: 50% reduction from agriculture in 5 years. With still another year to go, PepsiCo has already achieved a 38% reduction in onfarm emissions.
• Costco Wholesalers used the Cool Farm Tool in a sustainable sourcing programme with their entire U.S. supply base of organic eggs. The farmers achieved a reduction in GHG emissions in three years and are on track to achieve more.
• Marks and Spencer worked with WWF-India to determine the GHG impacts of growing cotton under ‘better management practices’. The results showed that better management practices reduced emissions by about 65% without sacrificing yield.
• On a tea cooperative in India, yields had declined by 30- 40% over the past 5-10 year period. The consultancy Soil & More International used the Cool Farm Tool for one hour during an onsite visit. Based on this analysis, the cooperative started using crop residues to make compost and apply it to the soil. Farmers gained a better understanding of carbon dynamics, utilised local resources that were previously part of a waste stream and increased water holding capacity in the soil by an estimated 40%.
In addition the tool is now being extended from a GHG calculator to include modules for measuring water and biodiversity; extending the tool has led to other academic organisations engaging to add to the evidence base and the methods underpinning the tool. As such the online Cool Farm Tool provides scientifically robust quantification methods that are sensitive to farm and field scale management choices. As new studies are done and more evidence becomes available, the models continue to be improved and refined. Growers can plug in their farm practices and get immediate results and instant feedback on the multiple environmental impacts of different farming management options using ‘what-if’ scenarios.
Supplier engagement and tools to measure and manage performance are necessary but not always enough to drive change. In the final analysis, being able to monetise GHG reductions (or indeed other environmental impacts) would clearly also be a powerful incentive towards empowering farmers to explore and adopt new practices. To this end, the Cool Farm Alliance is working with the Gold Standard to design methodologies and projects that use the Cool Farm Tool to enable farmers to earn carbon credits as an added incentive to implement agricultural practices that reduce GHG emissions and sequester carbon in soils and biomass.
In a pilot project, developed under Gold Standard Agriculture, Hivos and Soil & More Intl have closed the loop between energy generation using biogas from livestock manure on the one hand and sustainable agriculture through the increased application to land of bioslurry from the digester on the other. The household biogas reactors already generate carbon credits. As the bioslurry generated from the reactors is applied to the fields, the project will use the Cool Farm Tool to add GHG reductions through soil carbon sequestration and fertiliser reduction.
"... the tool is being widely employed in several companies as part of their sustainable sourcing programmes."
Knowledge exchange and translation
Why has the Cool Farm Tool been effective? Effort, innovation and financial support from public and private sectors have been important. But the key is a willingness to recognise that every actor brings their own knowledge to the table – farmers, academics and businesses in the food, drink, retail and farming sectors. Some of the scientific knowledge we need exists today and requires no more than re-packaging in a format that businesses and farmers can use. Other knowledge still needs to be generated. But the end-users cannot use this knowledge effectively unless their needs are recognised by the scientists. It is this end-user led science and co-design of tools and solutions which continues to drive the development of the Cool Farm Tool towards the mission of the Alliance.
Dr Jon Hillier and Professor Pete Smith, Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences, 23 St Machar Drive (G45), Aberdeen, AB24 3UU, UK
Tel: +44(0)1224 2742703
Email: j.hillier@abdn.ac.uk
Web: https://www.coolfarmtool.org
